Bowman’s Hill Wildflower Preserve presented their sixth annual Land Ethics Awards at the Land Ethics Symposium on March 10, 2016. The award honors the creative use of native plants in the landscape, sustainable and regenerative design, and ethical land management and construction practices. By raising public awareness about sustainable land management practices, the Land Ethics Award is an important part of the Preserve’s efforts to inspire the appreciation and use of native plants and serve as an educational resource for conservation and stewardship.

Doylestown Borough was the winner in the Public Space category for its rain gardens.

The Doylestown Environmental Advisory Council initiated this project to create two demonstration gardens, one featuring solutions to landscaping problems such as wet shady spots, the other in a lawn area to demonstrate sustainable stormwater runoff management. Volunteers and local landscape architects used recycled and donated materials and planted the gardens with native species. The gardens are on Borough-owned land and are accessible to the public. Future signage will indicate how these gardens, by using low impact development techniques, turn water into an environmental asset rather than a nuisance.

The awards jury admired how this project, “offers examples of solutions to landscaping problems. It also shows creativity in the use of trash from other area projects for building infrastructure.”